Hi Oleg, Thanks++ for your note. Very helpful.
I will definitely be in touch with you off list :) Thanks again all! Daniel On Saturday, 25 August 2012 at 12:00 PM, Oleg Ivanov wrote: > Hi Daniel, > > (as a full disclosure up front: I built SMS service of aerostatus.com > (http://aerostatus.com), so whatever I say below - will be in the context of > that project, YMMV depending on your project's specifics and targets) > > At different phases of the project we were looking at and using a number of > sms gateways, and as a quick summary - these are my current findings of this > area: > Depending on where you can place your server - the cheapest way to start > might be with a GSM modem connected to a laptop. That was our MVP, running > from home with a SIM card on unlimited SMS plan. There's a plenty of SMS > gateways available for that setup, from plug-n-play NowSMS for Windows, to > Kannel on Linux. Cons - limited speed of message processing (approx 10 SMS > per minute at that time), network link must be reliable to guarantee uptime. > We attempted to negotiate some agreements directly with mobile service > providers, but it turned up to be less than fruitful - they're > (understandably) not interested in talking to the small guys, so unless > you're going to send hundreds of thousands of messages per month - talking to > the resellers will give you a much better result (in terms of both contracts > and prices). It wasn't in Australia, though, but given we had the same > experience in a number of countries across the globe - I guess it's the same > everywhere, and it generally makes sense. > The best way to minimise the price of a message is to get a number of uplinks > to resellers/gateways in different countries. Prices vary wildly, and as we > don't care about latency and how many hops there are between our server and a > reseller - identifying you primary destinations and choosing a reseller with > low prices for that destination gives a certain edge. Also - talk to their > sales and push for a discount, you can often get high-volume discounts > without actually committing for high-volume packages. > Numbers provisioning is usually the hardest part, if you aren't happy with > the default options. Generally resellers have a set of numbers ready to go, > letting you choose one of those, or if you want something of your own - you > can send in your SIM card/etc. Still it's definitely not realtime, and has to > be taken care of as needed. Mind, though - we never really had a need for > real-time provisioning of numbers, so there might be something better, but > I'd expect it to be more expensive. > Ruby support - doesn't matter. All resellers and gateways I worked with > provide some kind of HTTP interface, so the integration is a breeze. Mobile > operators, though, are a different story - SNMP is the rule there, with a > number of more messaging-specific protocols also thrown in. Might be a pain > to integration with, but thankfully - we didn't have to. > I can't really give you any specific recommendations/contacts without knowing > your target countries first, but if you want to discuss things in more > details - feel free to get in touch off the list, I'd be happy to share the > experience. > > On Saturday, August 25, 2012 7:06:35 AM UTC+10, Daniel May wrote: > > (cross-posted on Silicon Beach Australia, apologies if you get duplicates) > > > > Hi, > > > > Starting to build an MVP. > > Need to use an interactive SMS gateway/service where: > > My back-end can send/receive/process SMS through the gateway > > Numbers can be easily provisioned (international numbers would be good) > > Ruby support is ideal > > > > > > There's stuff out there but wanted to leverage your concrete experience :) > > And low cost is also good :) > > > > Much thanks, > > Daniel > > > > > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "Ruby or Rails Oceania" group. > To view this discussion on the web visit > https://groups.google.com/d/msg/rails-oceania/-/Fy1OhjlXVooJ. > To post to this group, send email to [email protected] > (mailto:[email protected]). > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to > [email protected] > (mailto:[email protected]). > For more options, visit this group at > http://groups.google.com/group/rails-oceania?hl=en. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Ruby or Rails Oceania" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/rails-oceania?hl=en.
